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It’s finally happened. Apple has finally been knocked off the number one spot, at least as far as smartphones are concerned. According to recent reports, Samsung saw shipments of smartphones skyrocket over this same time last year, allowing the company to surpass Apple in worldwide mobile phone shipments. At the same time, Nokia saw its share drop significantly.

Samsung’s share in the global mobile phone market increased from 12.2% in the first quarter of 2011 to an astounding 30.6% in the first quarter of 2012. But just because it lost the number one spot doesn’t mean that Apple didn’t increase as well. The Cupertino company saw its share increase from an 18.1% share (2011) to a 24.1% share (2012).

The entire market saw an increase too as overall global smartphone shipments increased 41% annually to total 145 million units in the first quarter of 2012. Apple and Samsung combined to account for over half of that number. According to Executive Director at Strategy Analytics Neil Mawston, “Samsung and Apple are outcompeting most of their major rivals and the smartphone market is at risk of becoming a two-horse race.”

Samsung’s growth is stemming from the company’s very successful Galaxy devices, as well as some other products. “Samsung’s global smartphone shipments rose 253% annually…as demand surged for its popular Galaxy models such as the Note, S2 and Y,” Strategy Analytics noted. Unfortunately, all this good news for Samsung and Apple means bad news for Nokia, who saw its shares drop heavily from 23.5% in the first quarter of 2011 to 8.2% in the first quarter of 2012.

Tom Kang, Director of Strategy Analytics, stated, “This is Nokia’s lowest market share level in the smartphone category since 2002. Nokia’s new Microsoft Lumia portfolio has recently gotten off to an encouraging start in the critical United States market, but shipments there are not yet large enough to offset the firm’s tumbling Symbian volumes in the rest of the world.”

The good news here for Apple is that they manage to remain near the top despite only having two smartphones, the iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S, on the market. Samsung, on the other hand, has a lot of different options for customers to choose from, which means that there is a greater chance for people to find a phone that fits them the best. I feel like as soon as the iPhone 5 drops, Apple will be right back on top.